Illegal Pocono Township dump site saga back in DEP's cross hairs

The Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting this morning to answer questions about its latest plan to clean up the Yuhas dump site on Sullivan Trail in Pocono Township.

MICHAEL SADOWSKI

The Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting this morning to answer questions about its latest plan to clean up the Yuhas dump site on Sullivan Trail in Pocono Township.

The 5-acre property has been a thorn in the side of the township for more than two decades since the Monroe County Conservation District first identified it as an illegal dump site in 1990.

Since then, the state has gone through several plans and attempts to clean up the site, spending almost $1 million in the process, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said.

The latest plan would cost an additional $1.3 million, she said.

The last time the DEP was on-site for a clean-up was the spring of 2011. It discovered the house on the property had become structurally unsafe and could fall down if the department went through with its plan to redirect Dry Sawmill Run, the creek that runs through the property.

The creek was being redirected to get it further away from the house, which had been littered with trash and hazardous materials.

During a 2008 clean-up effort, the state removed about two dozen 55-gallon drums of paint thinner that threatened the creek.

Connolly also said the house will get in the way of equipment needed for further clean-up.

The years of hazardous materials there has led to possible soil contamination, which makes the groundwater on the site susceptible. That groundwater could then contaminate Dry Sawmill Run, a tributary of Pocono Creek.

The owner of record, according to the state, is LIG Investments Inc. However, Connolly said the company has been identified as a dummy corporation, and the true owners of the property could not be found, she said.

The DEP now needs permission from Monroe County to even go on to the site since the county tried to sell it at a tax sale last year. Connolly said the state expects to file a court complaint this week that would allow it to be on the property.

Today's public meeting at 10:30 a.m. at the Pocono Township municipal building on Route 611 in Tannersville is another step in the process.

Public comment will be limited only to the new part of the plan, the demolition of the Yuhas house and to the transport of the debris to an off-site disposal site.

Comment also will be accepted in writing through Feb. 20 for anyone who can't make the meeting. Work will resume on the site in mid-April.